We're inspired by . . .

sharing bottles of wine, smearing butter (and more butter) on bread, getting full on pasta, Kyoto’s Nishiki market, the sushi bars of Ginza, the vineyards of the Langhe, snuggling with our dogs, work, mom’s gyoza, that time we lost all our spices on the bullet train to Tokyo but then got them all back, our friends, our grandmothers, Fernand Point, Lou Reed, slurping ramen on a rainy night, when it snows in Aizu, Dario Argento and Dario Cecchini, Miyazaki mango season, that 2000 Giacomo Conterno Monfortino Riserva Barolo, Kazuo Ishiguro, Daido Moriyama, Luchino Visconti, the thugs of Cremona, the cardoons of the Po Valley, the rice fields of Toyama, the Strokes, 27-month aged Castelmagno cheese, just cheese, the first time we had Massimo Spigaroli’s 42-month aged culatello, the first time we had Massimo Spigaroli’s tortelli (the best!), Massimo Bottura’s tortellini with that morning’s cream from red Reggiana cows, Kuniko Mukai’s red sake, riding bikes to Caseificio Sociale Zibello, closing down Salumeria Roscioli on Christmas Eve, the Sonorium, making donabe, making ravioli, Cesare Giaccone’s hospitality and his spit-roasted capretto, toro that makes us teary, David Bowie, Alice Waters, the ocean, the hitokuchigashi at Higashiya, eating gelato in San Gimignano’s Piazza della Cisterna in the middle of summer, being a chef (even when it meant living in fear of getting punched in the kidneys for not cleanly deboning the squab), living downtown, leaving downtown, eating through the entire menu at da Enzo al 29, the chochin (chicken embryo) yakitori at Toritama, when the locals at the bar order extra sudachi for your cocktail because that’s the way they drink it, Omotesando Koffee in Omotesando (RIP), sitting at the counter at Pignon in Kamiyamacho and watching a staff of three cook and serve and wash all the dishes, cortados and once in a while a cortado condensada, Iggy Pop, Christopher Wallace (the greatest MC of all time), the regulars at Trattoria da Anna on the edge of Lake Como who are drinking Prosecco by 10 in the morning, New Year’s Day osechi, noodles, Tsukiji fish market at 4 a.m. because we have jetlag anyway, and then chirashi for breakfast, Akiyama Shouten’s bonito, getting lost in Modena and finding our way into Salumeria Giuseppe Giusti through the back door, the paitan broth at Kagari Ginza, Arabica.Coffee on the shores of the Ooi River in Arashiyama . . . To be continued.